The Italian's Ruthless Seduction

‘Not as happy as Sergio. He is most...excited.’

Bella suspected Maria hadn’t got that word right. Sergio was not the excitable type. Never had been. As much as she admired his self-contained persona, Bella found his tendency to be slightly straitlaced a touch irritating. Bella had never forgotten the night of her sixteenth birthday when she’d boldly asked him to kiss her. Bold for her, since she wasn’t at all bold when it came to the opposite sex. But all the girls from her class had been there at the party. Several of them had even drooled over Sergio, who’d turned up looking very hot and hunky compared to the boys at school. One of the girls had actually dared her to go and kiss him, so she had. And what had he done? Stiffened all over then given her a one-second peck which had been both humiliating and rather hurtful, considering she’d thought she looked quite hot herself that night.

No, Sergio was not the excitable type. He certainly wasn’t a typical hot-blooded Italian male. A good man, though, as the driver said.

‘I might freshen up before I go find him,’ Bella said, linking arms with Maria and steering her inside out of the heat. She’d forgotten how hot it could get here in the summer. ‘What room have you put me in?’

‘Sergio said you were to have one of the rooms next to his. He is in the master bedroom.’

Of course, Bella thought. He was master of the house now.

In the old days all children—even Sergio—had slept on the top floor of the villa, in bedrooms which didn’t have the size or the luxury of the bedrooms on the middle floor, where all three rooms had en-suite bathrooms and French doors that opened out onto a wide, cool balcony. The master bedroom, which was central to the three, was extra large with a king-sized four-poster bed and the most decadent bathroom Bella had ever seen. All black marble and a huge sunken spa bath.

‘Do I have a choice of which bedroom?’ she asked as they mounted the stone staircase that led up to the first floor.

Maria shrugged. ‘It is no matter. They have both been freshly cleaned. You choose.’

‘Perhaps the one with the gold bedspread, then.’

Which was how Bella came to be unpacking in the room where her mother and Alberto had once slept when they had stayed there all those years ago, a delightful room whose décor was cream and gold and which Bella had always admired. It hadn’t changed over the years, she thought as she dispensed with her too-hot jeans and pulled out a cool wrap-around dress made in the softest silk. The lovely antique furniture was the same, as was the gold-embossed wallpaper and the semi-transparent curtains that blew softly in the breeze from the lake. The bathroom was just as beautiful, Bella thought as she put her hair up in a loose knot and had a quick shower, the floor and walls covered in a cream marble with gold veins running through it. The fittings were all gold, the cream towels thick and soft. Once dried and dressed, Bella decided not to bother with make-up. Or with any further titivating. She was on holiday, after all. And the paparazzi had no idea she was here.

She might have lain down for a sleep—the big soft bed beckoned—but politeness insisted she find Sergio and tell him of her arrival. Maria had said that Sergio hadn’t been expecting her for another hour or two yet. Understandable. When her plane had set down in Rome Bella had been told that the flight to Milan had been delayed an hour, with her text to Sergio informing him of the fact. But the plane had actually taken off only half an hour late with the pilot making up good time with favourable winds. So she’d arrived at the villa earlier than the mid-afternoon Sergio would have anticipated.

When Bella emerged from the bathroom, she headed out onto the balcony, which gave an excellent view, not just of the lake, but the villa’s lovely garden and grounds. Glancing down and around in search of Sergio, her eyes immediately landed on a man who was vacuuming the pool. He was tall and dark-haired, wearing nothing but a pair of brief swimming trunks, showing off an impressive physique.

Dear heaven, she thought as she ogled the way his back muscles moved underneath his gorgeous skin. Not fair skin like her own, but beautifully bronzed in the way only men of Mediterranean genes achieved without using artificial methods. He was beautiful all over, she thought, with broad shoulders and a nicely shaped head, crowned with thick black hair that gleamed in the sunshine. She could not stop staring down at him, her lonely heart envying Maria for ensnaring herself such a hunky husband. For this had to be Carlo.

But no sooner had this thought entered her head than Carlo lifted his head and looked straight up at her, his very familiar eyes bringing a gasp to her lips.